Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Oct 8 10 tweets 3 min read
Somewhat emotional and rambling and sciency 🧵 coming up. 🥲

This here is the first appearance of Autumn red leaves at #OurWawar. Red maple beat out red oak.

Longtime followers will know my obsession with the beauty of Autumn red and the intriguing open science behind it.
As I've tweeted pretty much every October, the Autumn red is a fundamentally different thing than Autumn yellows and orange. And it is not yet a settled question about why exactly some trees go through this trouble of turning red just a couple of weeks of the year.
Pretty yellow leaves, like you see in Europe etc, do not require any extra effort from the trees. And makes total evolutionary sense. Deciduous trees shut down chlorophyll production as the sun grows weaker and heavy snow is about to start. That slowly turns em yellow, brown.
But red leaves are different! For an oak or maple to turn red, the tree has to start a separate production process, creating a chemical that turns them red. For only a week or two until they all fall down. It's an energy intensive process. So what do trees gain from it?
And why does it happen only in North America and a couple of other places? What possible advantage are the trees getting by turning red other than making humans very happy and making it likely that they plant or nurture more of these fleetingly red beauties?

There are theories.
Many of those theories contradict each other and don't explain why it only happens for such a short time. Like attracting animals or deterring animals.

In maples, it seems to have a sun screen type effect. That's currently the most acceptable explanation. But still limited.
Even if maples get UV protection from the red color in that transition phase before they fall, it's still not true in other trees that turn red. And many varieties of these trees thrive without turning red. So what gives?
This is one of my random esoteric obsessions. Thinking about why these trees work so hard to turn red. Most mammals are color blind, or at least RG blind. So they can't tell a red leaf from a white leaf. Bugs, birds see more colors than us. But how does it really affect them?
Maybe there was some bug that only came out these two weeks? But the trees seem to have survived without it. So what gives?

Fun to think about. While admiring the gorgeous fiery reds of the North American Autumn that make it objectively the best Autumn in the world.

/Fin
P.S. I'm not a scientist, just a science enthusiast. So actual experts, please feel free to correct any mistakes or add more fundaes.

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More from @gauravsabnis

Oct 9
So far #OurWawar camera traps have caught a lot of wildlife - bear, deer, raccoon, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks, coyotes, mice, and even a random stray cat!

But not a single rabbit or wild turkey which is a bummer. I was hoping to trap some to eat.

instagram.com/p/CjdSCfwOR9g/…
We found a bunch of old animal traps on the land. And I was reading that the tradition in that area before industrialized meat was more trapping than hunting. Deer hunting was okay but it was a logistical nightmare for most people to butcher and store em, unless for a feast.
Today, deer hunting is easy. You shoot one of those stupid things. Throw it in the back of a pickup. Take it to a USDA approved butcher. Who will vacuum seal it. You stick it in the freezer.

Not so easy in 1800s. Sure, you kill it. But what next? It might rot by evening.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 9
Boss how can you claim vegetarianism as a default virtue in Hinduism when LITERALLY every single myth of ours involves folks hunting. Unless you think Ram or Shantanu were into taxidermy, what do you think they were hunting for? To eat!! That's the whole damn basis of Ramayana!
Like literally the story of the Ramayana is that dude goes hunting so he, wife, and brother can eat some nice roasted venison. And another dude comes and kidnaps his wife. And then war happens.

So FFS stop shoving vegetarianism down our throats using state machinery.
If it is Ram Rajya then let us eat what Ram ate. Meat. 🤷🏽🤷🏽
Read 18 tweets
Oct 9
That way, also Radhika Apte, Nandita Das, Konkona, arguably even Rekha.

But these are still light brown skins and clear a very low bar. Like the brown paper bag test used in Jim crow America.

Sure we have our Halle Berry's but where are our Lupita Nyong'os?
I think Kajol is probably the most melanin I've seen in a mainstream Bollywood actresses. And she was third gen Bollywood. And in her most famous movie DDLJ, is shamed by her mom for not being gori.
The issue of light brown vs dark brown vs black is one seen all over the world, from black America to Chile to middle East to Pakistan to India.

There was this telling experiment in which they showed people pics of Obama with varying skin darkness level, then polled them.
Read 11 tweets
Oct 8
We've had our first big tree fall and it needs to be cleared.

With our goal to keep #OurWawar's carbon footprint minimal, I don't want to go straight to an electric chainsaw. Wanna try a good old tree saw, build muscles also.

Any recommendations for non mechanical saws?
Axe I already have. But apparently saws are faster for a fallen tree use case

Trying out these two saws, one by one. Both are decent. It'll be a good workout all day. Clear out this fallen Ash tree from that path.

The Marathi punster in me wants to do this all night so I can say करवते बदलते रहे सारी रात हम 🤭🤭
Read 10 tweets
Oct 8
Abeyaars, pick a lane!

Just yesterday y'all were crying that US visa wait times are too long.

Now you are like, India should issue an advisory that don't go to US and #BoycottUSA

Chronology wise it seems very much like "you can't fire me cos I quit!"
Modi has just created a generation of Rotlu's. Who buy into the constant passive aggressive whining against Murrca.

Btw America kisi ki sagi nahin. Plus your PM & his online army literally campaigned for Trump. Jaishankar whines about WaPo columns. Blamed Biden for 2nd wave.
If it was Manmohan's or even Vajpayee's India complaining about such things, you can understand.

But like literally, your guy said "Ab ki baar Trump sarkar". Your online acolytes harass the desi origin Vice President and her niece!

Why exactly will Biden admin favor Modi India?
Read 18 tweets
Oct 8
So this tweet has also gotten traction from bhakt IT cell.

And the same observation here as my "India is NOT a Hindu nation" thread last week.

The accounts posting hate replies or hate QTs have an average follower count of like 16 or so. That's a change from previous years. 🧐
I'll do a trend graph next week to confirm this and even test it statistically. But it seems like there is some kind of a recruitment or enthusiasm crisis in Malviya's cell. Hardly any accounts with 100+ followers in the hate section. It's like their C team or D team now.
And even the monotony and "copy paste and slightly edit" nature of the pushback is so lazy nowadays. Like I can just eyeball and see which 6-7 accounts with 15ish followers are all run by the same person sitting somewhere trying to make a living by "following orders".
Read 6 tweets

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